MISSING Sid is back home with his pining parrot friends – after being captured by a cat!Linda and David Whitaker's house is a noisy one once again thanks to the return of the much-missed and non-stop talking and squawking African grey.

MISSING Sid is back home with his pining parrot friends - after being captured by a cat!

Linda and David Whitaker's house is a noisy one once again thanks to the return of the much-missed and non-stop talking and squawking African grey.

But it was a close call after Sid, who escaped from the conservatory of the couple's home in Garrison Lane, Felixstowe, believed to have been accidently let out by their grandchildren, was found by a cat.

The moggy picked up Sid and took him into its owner's kitchen as a gift - but when the cat dropped the parrot on the floor, the bird turned round and attacked the feline.

Mrs Whitaker said: "Our biggest fear was that Sid might be found by a cat. We knew he would have real difficulty finding food and might have to go down on the ground to find seeds.

"When a woman from Walton rang me and said I think we have your parrot here, he was found by our cat, I feared the worst.

"But the cat never hurt him at all, and to make it worse he apparently attacked the cat after it let him go!"

Mrs Whitaker immediately went to the person's home. Sid had flown out of the house but returned when he heard her voice.

"We have been so incredibly lucky to get him back and the whole family is absolutely thrilled," she said.

"He was starving and hadn't been able to find any food at all, poor thing.

"He was very quiet at first when we got him home, but after a couple of days he was back to his normal self, talking non-stop, and now we have our noisy house again."

The couple's other two birds, green amazons Lucy and Fred, were also pleased to have Sid home. They had not given out so much as a squawk since he flew the coop.

Seven-year-old Sid has been with the Whitakers since he was a baby and talks non-stop, able to recite parts of various nursery rhymes, Bob the Builder, and shouts "my name is Sid and I can talk".

Together the three birds chatter and squawk - and when it gets too noisy Sid tells them to shut up.

Does your pet have an amazing story? Write in to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk or visit the forum at www.eveningstar.co.uk

Factfile:

n African greys are renowned for being able to talk - some have been found with vocabularies of up to 1,000 words.

n In the 16th century, King Henry VIII kept an African grey as a pet at Hampton Court.

n Parrots in captivity can live between 40 and 100 years depending on the species.

n There are 358 species of parrot, which include cockatoos, lovebirds, lorikeets and budgerigars.

n They are distributed through the tropical and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, but the largest number of species occur in Australia and the Amazon.

n They tend to live in large flocks and feed on seeds, fruits, nuts, nectar and fungi.

Source: the internet